A heavy fog rolled in over the beach.
Startled tourists found themselves enveloped in a mist so thick that nothing could be seen beyond a few paces.
Panic spread as they called out to companions, groping blindly through the haze.
A child digging in the sand cried out for his parents. His little hand brushed against something slick and cold. Curious, he brought it closer to his face—only to meet a pair
of cold, lifeless eyes.
The creature opened its mouth—
"Ah! Mommy, it hurts!"
More serpentine forms slithered through the dense fog. Screams erupted one after another.
The rustling of scales echoed through a small grove, heading swiftly for the pool.
Eric stood by the window, listening to the screams that grew ever closer.
It had arrived.
But what *was* it?
The mist now blanketed the hotel entrance. Eric squinted through the murk, trying to make out what accompanied the fog.
"Snakes! So many snakes!" someone screamed, the mystery unraveling in a single cry.
Eric's face paled. Snakes? She recalled the monstrous pythons of the rainforest. She even had a massive snake egg in a supermarket bucket—still alive, perhaps, as it had
absorbed the blood she dripped on it, though it had shown no change for weeks.
Now this replica had brought the fog and with it, the serpents. She didn't know how many there were—or if among them slithered another giant.
The mist surged forward. Eric slammed the window shut.
She didn't flee. In the face of a mass serpent attack, height offered no safety. If there was truly a giant among them, nowhere would be secure. She would turn this room into
a fortress.
Rushing into the supermarket, she fetched supplies, sealing every air vent, drain, and gap around doors and windows. Layers of tape crisscrossed the windowpanes. Curtains were
nailed over them as a final barrier.
While she worked, screams from below grew more harrowing—cries so vivid, they conjured images of people engulfed by writhing coils. Her skin crawled.
Weapon in hand—a club modified with a kitchen knife—Eric strained to catch every sound.
Rustle.
Rustle.
The slithering grew louder. The swarm was inside the hotel now.
A sharp crack echoed. Somewhere, a window had shattered.
Eric's bedsheet-blocked window revealed only muffled sounds.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Something was scaling the glass. Snakes, perhaps, raising their tails to batter the pane.
**Tap. Tap. Tap. TAP!**
The pounding intensified. She heard the glass splinter. The tape held—for now.
From the hallway came the relentless hiss of scales dragging across tile. It surrounded her. The hotel teemed with snakes. Eric's mind raced, trying to recall where the
portal light might appear.
"Help!"
"Aaahhh!"
The shrieks broke her focus.
No time to strategize—she needed to hold this room.
**BANG! BANG! BANG!**
She turned toward the bathroom.
The drains were sealed, and she'd placed a bucket atop the toilet lid.
**Bang! Bang!**
Water sloshed. The sound came from inside the toilet. A snake, perhaps. Maybe more. Eric didn't dare lift the lid. Instead, she stacked a fifty-kilogram sack of rice on top.
She swept the room again, fortifying every breach.
Elsewhere in the hotel, another player had fashioned a makeshift weapon from a fruit knife and chair leg. They hacked furiously at the serpents pouring in.
Strike after strike, but the serpents kept coming.
Every gap was a gate for the swarm.
Fatigue crept in. They couldn't hold out. The room would soon be overrun. With no choice left, the player leapt from the broken fifth-floor window into a patch of shrubbery.
The fall injured her, but she quickly used a healing item for her wounds. Spotting a path with fewer snakes, she ran.
Suddenly, she stopped.
Something monstrous loomed in the fog.
Her blood chilled.
Without thinking, she dove into the swimming pool, pressing herself against the pool wall, leaving only her nose above the water to breathe.
Trees crashed. Something massive approached.
Closer. Closer.
A colossal shadow emerged from the mist, flattening the grove as it advanced.
On the third floor, Eric remained vigilant.
A sound drew her to the air conditioner.
From it, a black tail slithered out.
**Hiss!**
The serpent struck. Eric swung her blade, severing it mid-air.
The twitching body hit the floor. She crushed the head beneath a chair.
It had begun.
Snakes poured from the air conditioning.
The window shattered. Though the tape held the shards together, it could not stop them.
Curtains bulged.
**Rip!**
Torn apart.
More serpents slithered in.
Eric fought with all her strength, her blade carving through bodies.
Decapitated heads snapped at her ankles. She kicked them aside, flinging them into walls.
Blood spattered floor and wall—it resembled a massacre.
A chill crept down her spine.
Something else was coming.
She turned toward the window.
Beyond it, the hotel gate—and the beach she'd come from.
What now approached?
Terror clutched her heart.
She retreated into the bathroom, bolting the door.
There, in the cramped space beneath a water bucket, she crouched.
Outside, serpents beat against the door.
Their tails flicked through the cracks.
The smaller ones forced their way through, scraping off scales in their frenzy. But they were too weak to break through even a plastic bucket.
Still she hid, aware the true danger was drawing near.
The ground trembled beneath her.
An earthquake?
No—something worse.
Something *vast* had collided with the hotel.
Eric pressed against the wall, trying to vanish.
She didn't know she was wrong—nothing had struck the hotel.
Something had **coiled around it**.
A monstrous form, impossible to describe, slid through the fog and wrapped itself around the building.
Its immense tail swept across the pool.
No survivor dared move.
They didn't even breathe, afraid a glance would bring death.
The creature circled the structure, testing it with flicking tongue.
It began to constrict.
Steel groaned, concrete cracked.
Chunks of debris rained down.
Eric staggered, bracing herself against the wall.
The entire hotel shook.
To the serpent, this building was a mere plaything.
It tightened, intending to drag its prize away—
But the brittle building crumbled.
Useless.
The serpent lifted its head high above the rooftop, tongue flickering.
It hissed—sending a signal only its kin could understand.
Then it loosened.
Uncoiling, it slithered forward.
At its command, the serpents retreated.
From every corner, every crevice, snakes poured out, following their king.
The fog dispersed.
The ruined hotel remained—crushed like a cookie underfoot.
Everywhere, the sinuous trails of their passing marred the earth.
Eric finally emerged. Survivors wept with relief.
She looked toward the jungle behind the hotel.
There, a massive trail vanished into the wilderness.
Before such overwhelming power, there was no need for detours or avoidance—
It simply *went through*.
"The portal! It's open!"
A drenched player pointed to the pool.
Eric turned.
Indeed, light shimmered from its center.
Players dove in, vanishing one by one.
Eric followed, leaping into the water.
> \[Player Eric has completed standard instance: *Serpent Disaster at Peninsula Hotel*. Points earned: 4]
She returned to the stone pillar forest.
After a brief hesitation, she stepped into another portal.
This time, she emerged in a barren wasteland.
Cracked, dry earth stretched endlessly.
Not a single blade of grass.
Two other players were already there.
Eric glanced at them, then at herself.
Her clothes were filthy and torn.
The instance had changed her outfit.
Her hair was a bird's nest—matted and sharp to the touch. Her skin was caked in dried, brownish dirt.
"We all look like this. Look over there," said a female player, pointing.
Behind a massive boulder sat a group—likely NPCs.
They were in similar states, looking like desperate refugees.
"So hot... What's this instance about?"
"Probably another standard level. Looks like we're supposed to be famine refugees. Look—more players are arriving."
Forty players entered the instance.
Shockingly, two-thirds were new.
Not a good sign.
As veteran players explained the situation, the NPCs began to move.
Eric stood to follow.
They carried bundles on their backs. One even had a dog—emaciated to the bone.
"Let's go. The NPCs will lead us to clues," Eric said, striding forward.